The metabolic status of encysted Artemia embryos under anoxic conditions has been studied by calorimetry. Previous work demonstrated a very low, but still measurable, source of metabolic heat (31 nW mg-1 dry mass) after 6 days of anoxia, attributed to the catabolism of small amounts of carbohydrate storage compounds and the unusual nucleotide diguanosine tetraphosphate. Our results indicate that the heat measured drops below the detection limits of our calorimeter (11 nW mg-1 dry mass) after 1.5 h of anoxia, in sharp contrast with previously published results. The possible sources of error that could explain this difference, and a re-evaluation of the metabolic status of cysts during anoxia, are discussed. We conclude that if the cysts are carefully protected from oxygen they become essentially ametabolic.
In the field: an interview with Martha Muñoz
Martha Muñoz is an Assistant Professor at Yale University, investigating the evolutionary biology of anole lizards and lungless salamanders. In our new Conversation, she talks about her fieldwork in Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and the Appalachian Mountains, including a death-defying dash to the top of a mountain through an approaching hurricane.
Graham Scott in conversation with Big Biology
Graham Scott talks to Big Biology about the oxygen cascade in mice living on mountaintops, extreme environments for such small organisms. In this JEB-sponsored episode, they discuss the concept of symmorphosis and the evolution of the oxygen cascade.
Trap-jaw ants coordinate tendon and exoskeleton for perfect mandible arc
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Trap-jaw ants run the risk of tearing themselves apart when they fire off their mandibles, but Greg Sutton & co have discovered that the ants simultaneously push and pull the mandibles using energy stored in a head tendon and their exoskeleton to drive the jaws in a perfect arc.
Hearing without a tympanic ear
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In their Review, Grace Capshaw, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard and Catherine Carr explore the mechanisms of hearing in extant atympanate vertebrates and the implications for the early evolution of tympanate hearing.
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